Dark Horse

Начало книги

Rome was hot.

So hot, that one flimsy shift was one too many.

So hot, that if the Tiber began to steam, no one would blink.

Biting flies moved in, little black things with long proboscises and big brown brutes with even longer ones. The overwhelming stench of sewage was everywhere. There were no festivals to compensate for the sweltering heat. No Games, no processions, no theatres, no nothing.

But for Claudia Seferius, the Tiber could boil and it would be cool compared to her current predicament. Bastards! Thought they could drive her out of business, did they? Over her dead body! The vegetable market was packing up as she cut a diagonal path across the cobbles. No shade in the market place at this time of day. Shadows would not fall from the Palatine Hill for another four hours and those cast by the Capitol had already passed over.

'Nice sprig of fragrant mint, lady,' an enterprising trader offered, 'to counteract the river pong?'

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